


Selfless Forgiveness and Selfish Love

by KnockKnock7



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 11:56:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8623621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KnockKnock7/pseuds/KnockKnock7
Summary: River must come to terms with herself after killing the Doctor.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Though the ‘Night and the Doctor: First Night’ mini-episode makes this scene obsolete, in my mind I felt that something like this had to happen before River could move on with her life, so this story came about. Just a short note, the italicized dialogue is taken from ‘The Wedding of River Song,’ and was written by Steven Moffat. Hope you enjoy. Feedback is most welcome and appreciated!   
> (No copyright infringement intended.)

Selfless Forgiveness and Selfish Love

KnockKnock 7

 

He came to me that night. He wasn’t his usual cheerful self—bouncing around, talking a hundred miles an hour, happy as only the Doctor can be. Today, he was quiet, his normal smiling face was somber, and his eyes were sympathetic.

He was alive.

How had he known that I would need him? But, of course I knew the answer to that question, just as I had known deep in my heart that tonight he would not be late. Our lives were back to front: of course he had known what day would be the hardest day of my life.

And yet, in a broken reality that still lived in my memory, it was the happiest day of my existence.

How could that be? The happiest day should not be the saddest day as well. But the Doctor’s and my lives were like that—the curse of Time Travel.

I watched him as he opened the door of my cell with his sonic screwdriver and I moved to the other side of the bed as he entered. He came and sat—silent and supportive as only he could be.

_Always and completely forgiven,” His words rang in my ears as if we were still there at that dreaded lake._

Where I had killed him.

“River,” His voice was so quiet I almost missed it in my guilt and grief.

“I just murdered you,” I said and wasn’t surprised at the bleak hopelessness in my voice.

I closed my ears and there I was again. Lake Silencio…

_“Well then. Here we are at last,” The Doctor said and his voice was so calm and I could almost believe that we weren’t here with his death so close but where we should be—somewhere in the universe, playing while we enjoyed the wonders of life._

_“I can’t stop it. The Suit’s in control,” My voice shook with my desperate fear. I couldn’t kill him—I wouldn’t kill him._

_But I had to._

_"You’re not supposed to. This has to happen,” He stated with a hint of authority, putting his voice to my thoughts._

_“Run!” I begged him. He couldn’t stay here. He had to run, he had too!_

_“I did run,” He countered my pleas as if his death meant nothing to him. Maybe, it didn’t. But it meant a great deal to me.  “Running brought me here.”_

_I tried to fight it, but I can’t,” I explained—excused myself as if that could relieve the pain of what he wanted me to do, “It’s too strong._

_“I know. It’s okay,” The Doctor murmured comfortingly, “This is where I die. This is a fixed point, this must happen. This_ always _happens,” His voice was soft and even in this nightmare I felt myself relax the tiniest bit in his clear love for me. “Don’t worry. You won’t even remember this. Look over there,” He nodded to the shore._

_I did as I was told and saw three people: my parents—Amelia Pond and Rory Williams: the Girl who Waited and the Last Centurion. And the third—myself._

_"It’s me,” I cried, “How can I be there?”_

_“That’s you from the future,” The Doctor explained, “Serving time for a murder you probably can’t remember. My murder,”_

_How could he stand there and be fine with this. Fine with what was about to happen. Fine with what I was about to do. What I couldn’t stop. I knew that he pretended that nothing could hurt him that no matter what, he was always alright. But I knew better, I knew him better. I knew that he was lying when he said that._

_But here and now, I could hear no lie in his voice, see no dishonesty on his face, detect no lie in his eyes._

_“Why would you do that?” I asked, horrified by the thought of having to live it now and watch myself do it in the future. Horrified that he would do that to me, but I knew that he had a reason. He always had a reason. “Make me watch?”_

_“So that you know this is inevitable,” His voice was no longer comforting but strong in his command. His command to kill him._

_My hand raised. I tried to pull it down, fought to stop the future, tried to save my sweetie. But I couldn’t._

_Madame Kovarian and her associates had done their work too well; the Suit was in complete control. Nothing I did could stop it._

_“And you are forgiven,” He promised and my hearts broke at his words and the implications of them, “Always and completely forgiven,”_

_“Please, my love.” I sobbed as I forced the pleas out. I fought the Suit, tried to gain control of my muscles but I was paralyzed. “Please, please just run,”_

_“Can’t,” And still he stood there, calm and accepting of his death._

_Why, oh why, couldn’t he—just this once—run? Run as fast and as far as he could and just keep running and never stop? Why couldn’t he fight and defend himself like he always did? Why didn’t he care that I was going to shoot and he would die?_

_It didn’t matter that he would live. It didn’t matter that the man in front of me was really a ship created to look like my love and that the man that I was really speaking to was simply a tiny speck in that beautiful dark grey eye._ _None of that mattered, not when I held the gun pointed at_ him _. Not when I was about to kill him._

_Stop it! I commanded myself but my body wouldn’t listen to me. And for a moment I was that little girl again; that little girl who was afraid of the Spaceman coming to eat her. And it had eaten me, for here I was. Trapped in a prison that would never let me go._

_Trapped in a prison that would shatter my heart._

_“Time can be rewritten,” I grabbed at what I knew could never happen, desperate for something,_ anything, _to stop this from happening. I knew that time could be rewritten— we had done it before. Just let me get control and we could rewrite history…But I knew that would never work._

_It didn’t matter what choices I made—this is where we would always end up. Always._

_“Don’t you dare,” The Doctor said with protective authority. Then softly and unafraid he whispered his final words, “Goodbye, River,”_

_I shot…_

“River,” His voice startled me out of the past nightmare and into the present austere reality. “River, I’m not dead,”

I looked at him, searched his eyes for something that suggested that he was lying. After all that was the first rule—the Doctor lies. But, again I could not find anything. Not a hint of anger or a trace of regret. Not a drop of pain nor a whisper of hatred.

“But I killed you,” I whispered hoarsely. The tears began to flow down but I didn’t try to stop them; I hadn’t then and I certainly didn’t now.

“No, River,” he explained patently, “What you killed wasn’t even alive to begin with. It was a machine designed to look like me. I was safe inside the eye—your weapons didn’t even scratch me,”

“But I _shot_ you and you died,” I cried.

I needed him to understand what I had done, what I was going through. It didn’t matter that he was right, that I hadn’t actually killed him, it didn’t matter that he was here safe and whole.  Here with me, fighting for my actions that had killed him, completely alright with sitting by the woman who had murdered him.

All that mattered was that I had been unable to stop myself from shooting the man that I loved with my whole hearts and soul. That I hadn’t been strong enough to just run away—heedless of rule seven.

All that mattered was that I had in all essence of the words, killed the Doctor.

_“Always and completely forgiven,”_

I think I hated that selflessness. That absence of concern for himself. That selflessness which had kept him fighting to save Amy and Rory in Berlin, such a long time ago. That selflessness that had kept him traversing the universe, admiring the wonders of all creation instead of owning them as he so easily could. That same selflessness that had brought him to the lake and kept him there, commanding me to kill him.

To save time itself and lose my love.

For me there had been no choice. The Doctor could not die—I could not kill the Doctor.

His choice had also been final. The Doctor had to die—Melody Pond must kill the Doctor on April twenty-second, twenty thousand and eleven, two minutes past five at Lake Silencio, Utah.

And I had.

But now, how could I live with what I had done?

 “Riv—”

“No!” I interrupted him, taking out my pain on him for he was the only one who knew what I was going through, “Don’t you see? I killed you and I don’t care if there was no other way and time was disintegrating! I don’t care if you didn’t die, the fact is…” My voice broke as I confessed my darkest secret to my husband, “The fact is, I killed you—my one and only love,”

“Oh, River,” His voice was so soft and so full of love that I could only cry harder. The Doctor gathered me up in his arms and held me close. “River, it had to happen just as it hard to be you who did the deed. My death is a fixed point in time; you _had_ to kill me. You had to kill me for me—it’s the first request I set to you, wife.” He paused just long enough to kiss my hair, “And you did kill me. Yet, here we are, you and me, alive. “

“But I still killed you,” I murmured against his shoulder, “I’m still a murderer.”

“River,” That was all he said but my hearts broke even more—how was that possible—and the flood of tears began.

We sat there; the Doctor silent, giving me my time, his hand moving in a soothing pattern on my back as I sobbed into his brown tweed jacket, unable to silence my cries.  Unable to even call up the will to quiet them.

I don’t know how long we were there before my well of tears had run dry, it seemed like forever. But still we stayed.

I listened to the beats of his hearts. One, two, three, four. They were a comforting steady rhythm that anchored me to the truth of his continued existence. He was alive.

It was like a mantra—One, the Doctor _is alive_. Two, the Doctor _is alive_. Three, the Doctor _is alive_. Four, _the Doctor is alive_. One, the Doctor _is alive_. I just repeated it in my head over and over again. Maybe if I said it enough it would erase the past.

But of course it couldn’t. I had still killed him and that was a truth that would never change.

That was the truth that would forever ensure my self-hatred.

The Doctor is alive.

Maybe then, if I repeated it enough than I could convince myself that this wasn’t a dream born out of my crazed grief and that my love really was here holding me in his arms and whispering soft consolations.

Abruptly, the Doctor slipped out of my embrace to stand and began to move toward the open cell door.

“No!” I whispered, afraid to be alone. Afraid to be without him, “Please don’t leave me.”

He held out his hand to me. “Come with me,” He directed instead, relieving my fears.

I slowly walked to him, unsure of what he was doing, “Where?”

“I want to show you something,” He said, “Don’t worry, I’ll be there with you every step of the way,”

I took the last step and took his hand. A sudden grin overtook his face as he gripped my hand in his and lead me to the TARDIS. His TARDIS.

I was the child of the TARDIS, or so the Doctor had told me—I still didn’t really understand what that meant. Walking into that beautiful ship with my husband by my side, it felt like coming home. I felt like I belonged here.  And always would belong.

I stood there and watched as he ran around the console, flying us to wherever it was we were going.

 I loved to watch him as he flew the TARDIS.

I knew how to fly her—better than he did—but I couldn’t fly her like he did. My hands would never gently stroke her as he input the coordinates. My hands would never caress her as he passionately pulled the levers. My hands would never rub against her console with such gentleness that only nine hundred years of friendship could create. My eyes would never shine with such joy as he gracefully ran around her floor. I would never smile with such euphoria as he did what he loved best with the one that would never leave him.

I would never treat her with such love—no matter how many times I flew her. No matter that I was the child of the TARDIS. I would never have the connection that the Doctor had with her.

It would always be them, I thought with a touch of sadness, the Madman and his trusty Blue Box. When everyone else was gone, they would still be there seeing the universe and staying out of trouble…badly.

“Here we are,” The Doctor said with a mysterious grin as he moved to my side.

“Where are we?” I asked, almost afraid to step out and see what he wanted me to see. After all he had invited my future self to watch his murder, who knew what else he would do to prove his point. “When are we?”

He smiled gently as he put his hands on my cheeks, “No, River, you have to see for yourself,”

I stayed there in his arms and closed my eyes. Relishing in the fact that he was here.

If this was a dream then I wanted it to never end. But I knew it couldn’t be a dream, he really was here. Alive.

“Don’t worry, it’s all right,” He said, stepping from my embrace to lean on the door.

Silently, I obeyed and opened the doors to reveal a white desert landscape with a darkening purple sky and two yellow moons. I took three steps outside before I saw them.

There was a circle of aliens, surrounding someone, their guns pointed straight at her.

She had curly blonde hair that wouldn’t stay in one place. She was wearing a dark grey jumper that hosted a belt with an assortment of technological devices and an empty gun holster.

“Sweetie,” She called, looking back over her shoulder at someone, “Aren’t you going to help?”

“No, no, no,” _He_ said—the Doctor said. “River, you got yourself into this mess, you can get yourself out of it. Rule 709,”

I spotted him, leaning against the TARDIS doors, staring at a rectangular device in his hand, every once in a while glancing up to see what the woman—what I was doing.

“Oh, that is so rude,” She—I said with a low laugh as she rolled her eyes. “I hate you,”

“No, you don’t” The Doctor said quickly and easily as if he had said the same thing many times before.

I stared at them, shocked into silence. Why had my Doctor brought me here? Why did he want me to see this? How was this going to help anything?

I turned back to look at him, the question in my eyes, “Why?”

He smiled sadly, “Because, River, I wanted you to see them,” he pointed to the scene in front of us, “I wanted you to see us—the future us. I wanted you to see that I am alive and that you have forgiven yourself,”

“I don’t understand, what does this do? How does this help?” I asked, trying to follow his rapid and sometimes-confusing logic. “I…I know that you’re alive—I do—so how does this help?”

“Look at them, River,” He directed.

I turned once more to look over at them. Something had happened; the Doctor had joined the circle. He was spinning slowly around, including each and every person in the conversation as he talked a hundred miles an hour. The guns had been put away. The future me was staring at the Doctor with a smile on her face, watching as he turned the situation to what he wanted it to be.

“You see them?” My Doctor asked, “We’re happy. You and I, in the future—in our future—we’re happy. And do you know why?”

I shook my head, torn between staring at the future Doctor and me or my present Doctor.  “Why?” I asked my voice hopeless, lost in this impossible reality. “How can I be happy after this?”

“You let it go,” His plan was so…simple. As if letting it go would fix everything. “Come on, back to Stormcage, before they notice that you’ve disappeared,” He vanished into the TARDIS.

I started to follow but was caught once more by the future us. The gun-wielding aliens were nowhere in sight. Future River was also going into the TARDIS, the Doctor’s hand on her back gently supporting her.

Would that really be us, in the future, would I really find happiness again? Would the Doctor really let his death go just like that?

Would the Doctor really forgive me? Could I ever actually forgive myself?

I turned to follow my Doctor when the future Doctor caught sight of me. He smiled that sudden smile that lit up his whole face, put a spark in his eyes, and set my hearts racing. He raised his hand in greeting and nodded to me.

Then he too entered his beautiful ship. The future us were gone in seconds.

I understood then what the Doctor was showing me. I understood what he had been trying to tell me all along. I understood what he wanted of me. I just didn’t know how I was supposed to do it.

“Do you see?” He asked me as I entered the main room. “Do you understand?”

“I have to let it go to move on,” I answered, staring at him as he stood there uncertainly.

“Rule 5,” He said and shook his head, chuckling softly, “River,”

“But how can I just let it go?” I questioned, “How do I just get over killing you?”

“Oh, River Song,” He covered the distance between us and drew me close, his forehead touching mine. He sighed, searching for the right words. Then, quietly, gently he explained. “Letting it go won’t be easy, but you have to. It will be hard—but that’s what life is. Life isn’t easy. Life is complicated and full of mistakes and pain…But that’s not all that life is. There is joy and laughter. There is love and fun and adventures. Life is…well, life is being alive. Sad and complicated, as a very dear friend of mine once told me. And she was right, it is sad and oh, so complicated to be alive but it is so, so _beautiful._ ” He paused, leaning his head on mine. “You learn, River, you learn from what you did and you turn it into something else. Turn it into something good and beautiful and amazing. Because that’s what you are, Melody Pond—amazing.”

I stared at him trying so hard not to melt at his words yet at the same time I felt a sudden weight of responsibility fall on my shoulders. I did not want to disappoint the Doctor.

Though I wasn’t so sure that I could—after all, I had killed him and yet here I was in his embrace, with no angry words said.

“As someone long ago once said, ‘Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain.’ That’s what you have to do, River. Learn to dance in the storm, laugh in the face of death, light up the darkness with a brilliant smile…You have to be River Song,”

“I am River Song,” I said with a smile.

“Then you’ll be fine,” The Doctor responded.

At that moment, I felt a release as if that burden of responsibility had become less of a duty and more of an adventure. For the first time since I had shot the Doctor, I felt like life really could move past this dark reality and into a shining dream.

***

“Well, here we are,” The Doctor announced as if he had done a great impressive feat. And though he had only brought me back to my cell, I knew that he had.

He really had forgiven me. He really was alright.

And one day, I would be alright too.

The Doctor was correct; I didn’t have to wallow in grief for a man that wasn’t really dead. I didn’t have to hate myself for committing a murder that hadn’t killed anyone. I didn’t have to weep over lost love, because he wasn’t lost.

I wasn’t lost. Not anymore. Not with his calm figure there on the lakeside flashing through my mind every time I closed my eyes. Not with his smile lighting up my hearts, with no idea of what that smile did to me.

Learn to dance in the storm. Laugh in the face of death. Light up the darkness with a brilliant smile. That’s what he had told me to do. And I would do as I was told. I, River Song, would be amazing. Because the Doctor had told me to, and the Doctor’s companions always did what they were told. I would be amazing because I had my husband’s love to keep me strong, my Sweetie’s smile to keep me running from one danger into the next adventure, and the Doctor’s forgiveness to keep me living my life.

_Always and completely forgiven._


End file.
